After raining and then freezing and then raining, winter on Canada in Plainfield turns into a miniature version of what I imagine Antarctica to be like: layers of ice upon ice upon ice that have crushed into and over each other. You can walk around, if you bring a ski pole and are careful, but when you do you’d better be ready: you don’t get wet feet in Antarctica and you are pretty unlikely to come out unscathed here. But then I never do.

This winter is generous. An all-day Sunday pour delivers 4 inches of water on the ice; near-freezing temperatures create a hint of lace on top of it by Monday afternoon. And then the water keeps going on its way to the Atlantic leaving a layer so thin it shatters when I breathe on it. So fragile it becomes monstrous to do so. And so I barge on through it like we are wont to do, sticking my nose and my camera into the worlds of ice, into the worlds beneath the ice. Sloshing to catch lace.